Well, it’s turned into a semi-interesting week for fans of Tottenham Hotspur – but not in a way many of us would’ve liked it to be.
Following Sunday’s late breaking European Super League nonsense, on Monday morning Spurs took an unexpected step and decided to sack manager Jose Mourinho. Now maybe I’m too cynical for my own good, but this smacks of changing the narrative and trying to drive headlines as nobody can be in any doubt about how badly the ESL has been received, not just at club level, but across the wider footballing world.
European Super League
Love It
Disgraceful Move
There is absolutely only one driver to this – greed and money – and having previously misjudged the mood when it came to Covid and furlough, Daniel Levy, the board and our owner have again monumentally misjudged fans in their chase for what I can only see as a criminal and cartel like ‘closed shop’ competition that gives all those involved a clear unfair advantage over fellow domestic sides – which in turn, ruins the credibility of that leagues competitive nature.
Not a merit based advantage that we currently have, but an advantage wholly gained by a handout for involvement and nothing more.
Fans are hoping to return to a more normal life after Covid, and Spurs pull this stunt now and to me, simply sack Mourinho as a public relations move to deflect attention. It’s contemptible and disgusting behaviour in no way demonstrating what our club should stand for.
We play Southampton this Wednesday evening, I’m not so sure how much I care now.
OyvehMaria, Liverpool bought van djik, from the sale of countino for 120mil
I’m glad Jose has been sacked for whichever the reason as I couldn’t take the football, but with the appointment of Ryan Mason(who I’m pleased for) for the rest of season makes me believe the decision had to do with the news of us being involved with the ESL. As disappointing as the ESL maybe it’s not unexpected in this capitalist society we in live, everything is for sale.
As for the game I’m actually looking forward to it , hoping it will bring a better end to the season than it did on Sunday.
Sorry to bring this thread back to Mourinho TK but since you were the one implicitly praising some players for withholding their labour to make a point against Mourinho, it would be interesting to have your response to this comment I posted earlier.
“Lot of talk here about the club and supporters coming first in the context of the Super League business. It would have been nice if certain of our players had had the same attitude instead of showing their resentment on and off the field about the way they had been treated by Mourinho, thereby dragging the team and its supporters down with them. These guys are exceptionally well rewarded for playing for the club and its supporters, not for the manager. There is therefore absolutely no excuse for them “going on strike“ as TK has put it because their precious feelings have been hurt or because they think they know better about tactics. It is noticeable that the only players who have gone public in their support of Mourinho at this time are our two best players who have given their all for the club.”
I refer you to my earlier reply Stan……and also my reply to your reply to my reply. :- )
Yes, I noticed you dodged the actual point I was making
No I didn’t Stan, you obviously chose to ignore my response because it didn’t fit your deluded defence of Mourinho.
If he was so good and it’s the players that are to blame then why has Levy sacked him rather than getting rid of the crap players in the summer? Don’t bother making any more excuses for him please…he has gone and it’s time to move on and not dwell on the awful 17 months we had to endure this dinosaur at our club.
You have to laugh at Florentino Perez of RM with his defence of the ESL. He is claiming that young people aren’t interested in football as there are too many poor quality games and as a result they are losing money!
This might apply in the Spanish league, and to a degree in the early rounds of the european competitions, but certainly doesn’t apply to the premier league. If young people aren’t interested in football it may well be due to a growing disillusionment because of the cost of attending games and the gameday tickets which part fund the obscene wages which have been encouraged by clubs like his own which are unsustainable.
Seems DL is now showing signs of having reservations about the ESL as are City and Chelsea!
TQ…your probably right there, but you have to see for gods sake ours/every bodies/worldwide football is run by the power brokers, you can’t touch me, big brother, no one to answer to, FIFA & UEFA.
I believe the 12 were/are trying to high light this, Football Nationally and Worldwide is run by Fat Pig Bullies. COYS
Belgian,
you are entirely right in pointing out that many franchises in the American sports model have been quite stable. The Boston Red Sox, with essentially the same ownership as Liverpool FC, have played and still play in the same “park” for over a century, and the owners have put much money into modernizing Fenway Park. I didn’t mean to say that all teams (no one calls them clubs) often act like pirates raiding local communities and leave the communities far the worse for it. The American model invites and encourages predatory ownership and world football looks aimed at a rapid and strong move in a direction that far far too often is predatory and eats up and spits out supporter of clubs. I cannot under-describe the hurt that many of these franchises behave in these horrible ways. The very worst of capitalist instincts are found on steroids in franchise owners. I use the word “franchise” quite purposefully. That’s exactly what these businesses are, and unlike McDonald’s they have succeeded time after time conning communities into paying huge sums of money to them to move their franchises from their traditional homes, stiffing the old communities with bills that they remain having to pay for years after there team as long since departed.
This is not the route we want to see football take, and it’s quite clear to me that this is the root that some current owners of football clubs want to go.
And yes, not all capitalist franchise owners are as cynical as others, just like not all military dictators engage in genocide. But enough do that we don’t want democracies overthrown and we don’t want English football super distorted in this direction.
By the way, there is one NFL franchise that is owned by the community where they play–the Green Bay Packers, who stay playing in the same small town they have been in for decades. Think that the North London community can buy the THFC? Do you trust ENIC to look out for our traditional interests over their bottom line?
stan, I didn’t mean to praise or damn the players for engaging in a work-to-rule strategy. I merely pointed out that that seemed the best way to understand the way they were playing and that Mourinho provoked such a response. I’d prefer extremely highly paid players to put in their best effort, but lots of money in the pocket doesn’t make a man happy. Mistreat a worker and you cannot be surprised when their performance sinks like a rock in a polluted pool. that’s as likely to be true for a millionaire as for a pauper. Indeed, the pauper has more reason to put in effort because he might starve otherwise, but a rich player is rich and won’t suffer too quickly.
TK, if they had put the club and their fans before their hurt feelings ((and the interests of their agents) maybe we would have been in a much better position than we are in now.
Yes, this sounds right. Of course this can be interpreted in many ways. If Mourinho hadn’t alienated them so much…, if DL had hired a better man manager…, if the players had the values and attitudes that players had 50 years ago…, and so forth.
But yes, if the players had responded differently to Mourinho we probably would be higher in the table today. The preferred interpretation of this for me is that both Mourinho and the players could be blamed for this, as can DL, etc. I blame neither Stan nor myself. LOL. not enough power on our end of matters to have that sort of influence. Maybe we can blame all the old participants on this site who have drifted away over the years? or the stars? I get more emotional satisfaction at laying the blame at the ego sized feet of the Miserable One, but that’s just a therapeutic choice. Water over the damned bridge or whatever, under the bridged damned dam.
I also prefer your preferred interpretation TK and as you say it’s a therapeutic choice to bring it all down to one person.
Doesn’t Spurs have an NFL pitch somewhere
the Spurs reportedly have an NFL field, not pitch (lol), on a pull-out tray at TH Stadium at WHL. So I read many times when the new stadium was being constructed. they can pull it out automatically whenever the NFL wants to play a match there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScPBxYAmNtg
Watch the NFL pitch come out on its tray at TH Stadium
Maybe we can host two Super Bowl matches in one year at WHL, one for the NFL and another for the Super League Bowl. Barf.
I’m really eager to see who is selected to start tomorrow’s match. If the new man wants to make some headlines, he’ll select both Bale and Dele. T’would be interesting to see whether Bale would put in a full effort with Mourinho gone. With Hojbjerg knackered why not play Dier once again was a defensive midfielder? He needs a resurrection and Hojbjerg needs a rest. He looks to fall over knackered in recent matches.
I’m still conflicted by this ESL proposal. However I am absolutely sure that it cannot run in conjunction with local leagues. It ould only perpetuate the US and them in the PL to an even greater extent to now. But a stand alone league seems to be inevitable in some form as the global market demands it. If so THFC must be in it.
LT,
‘If so THFC must be in it.’
Therein lies the rub.
but the real question concerns in what sense the global market demands it. One could argue that only the global marketers demand it, not the global market.
It’s a dead duck, just a matter of whether there is any recriminations as a result.
Just for the sake of accuracy, the NFL field/pitch is fixed, not moveable, and is underneath the football pitch which is on 3 trays which roll out and sit under the south stand.
I discovered those details when I watched the youtube video I found. always good to get the details right. I had the two fields/pitches in reverse position in my inaccurate memory.
Looks like we’re doing a bit of a U turn on the Super league.
I’m largely happy over this, yet again we seem to have been the madia “baiting boy” in all of this due to our apparent lack of both domestic and European trophies compared with other premiership sides.
Look at the Sonny incident how many re runs and post mortem did we have over that, yet Martial fell over every week, and what? Nothing said. Probably why we sacked JM on this date to stop the media frenzy.
Re tomorrow night I completely forgot that Danny Rose could make a come back for us at LB, would love him back at his best, as TBH, there weren’t many as good in that position at his best.
Looking forward to the team selection tomorrow nite. COYS.
I
It would be delicious to see Danny Rose start tomorrow but unlikely. I’ll never forget his first goal, vs Arse. What a great start that was. And he was solid for a long time.
Chelsea 0 Brighton 0 and Brighton missed three clear chances in the last 15 minutes, including hitting the post. So we’re still just 5 points from a top four place. Have you also noticed that other top teams have been dropping points recently but this doesn’t seem to have the kind of consequences that happens when we drop some points.
Well. it’s up to our team to pick up three of those five points on the morrow.
Even if we do there will still be a 2 point gap to the 4th place team who would have a game in hand over us. It will take a miracle to get top 4 now.